Are there any secular arguments against gay marriage? - General

Are there any secular arguments against gay marriage?

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[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46188275]When you limit a definition to the things you can accept as the definition and define changing it as wrong, it becomes impossible to create a compelling argument you don't just hand wave away as less valuable than your own objective opinion[/QUOTE] I've argued for WHY my given foundational definition is correct and WHY it's important to society. I have NOT stated the definition and made my argument based on it. If you disagree with my arguments for why marriage should be what I've said that it should be, then please respond to them. That's the whole point of the discussion. [QUOTE]I would say the same to you in regards to your edit.[/QUOTE] Lol... I don't think I've ever accused someone of brushing aside my points, even if I felt that they had. So I'm not sure how you can feel that way about me.

i find it funny when christians become logic robots who only believe in procreation & continuation of the species when it comes to gay marriage [editline]9th October 2014[/editline] any excuse to keep people who don't believe in what they do down, oh nooo i'm appealing to emotion or something oh nooooooo

[QUOTE=Lachz0r;46188450]i find it funny when christians become logic robots who only believe in procreation & continuation of the species when it comes to gay marriage[/QUOTE] I find it funny when I get critiqued for wanting to use logic. [QUOTE]any excuse to keep people who don't believe in what they do down, oh nooo i'm appealing to emotion or something oh nooooooo[/QUOTE] It's literally a basic logical fallacy that you would learn in a freshman level philosophy/communications course.

[QUOTE=sgman91;46188237] Also, I'm going to wait for Last or First to respond, if he wants, to the big post since glitchvid seemed to respond to each part of my post completely out of the context of the discussion at hand.[/QUOTE] ... I responded pretty eloquently, it was certainly lazily, but that's only because all of your arguments have already been proven wrong pages ago. This thread is about secular arguments against gay marriage. I say Gays, as consenting human being in their right mind, are deserved the same rights as straights when it comes to marriage ([i]The legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman (or, in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex) as partners in a relationship.[/i]). I say they deserved because nothing about marriage explicitly limits it to being between the same sex of consenting adults in their right mind, other than maybe a definition (So let's prefix it with gay-marriage, problem solved). [b]if[/b] you can prove gays "aren't in their right mind" (legally) then there might be an argument, but marriage only being recognized as straight is discrimination without reasonable basis. [editline]8th October 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=sgman91;46188532]I find it funny when I get critiqued for wanting to use logic. It's literally a basic logical fallacy that you would learn in a freshman level philosophy/communications course.[/QUOTE] If you care about logical arguments I'd suggest either reading [url]http://skepdic.com/essays/Haskins.html[/url] or picking up a book like [url]http://www.amazon.com/EPZ-How-Win-Every-Argument/dp/0826498949[/url] I'm pretty sure HumanAbyss is just tired of seeing you type the same things over and over; he has also been debating bIgFaTwOrM12; which come in and makes snide replies usually without addressing most of the previous argument. To reiterate Morality: [i]principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.[/i] Morals: [i]a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.[/i] If there where objective morals (morals that are WRONG and RIGHT, and everyone was held to them) they would indeed be "moral of the people"; but that's easily proven wrong since there are cold blooded murderers, rapists, etc. You can try to argue that moral law exists (either enforced or to be punished by a "greater power" - supernatural ofc) but that would still need to be proven to be the case. If you cannot demonstrate the ability for "objective morals" to exist, or cannot provide them, then we must default to the morals we can show to exist: people's own subjective principals. and argument can be taken from there, one which is very messy but the consequence of no objective laws to exist.

[QUOTE=sgman91;46188290]I've argued for WHY my given foundational definition is correct and WHY it's important to society. I have NOT stated the definition and made my argument based on it. If you disagree with my arguments for why marriage should be what I've said that it should be, then please respond to them. That's the whole point of the discussion. Lol... I don't think I've ever accused someone of brushing aside my points, even if I felt that they had. So I'm not sure how you can feel that way about me.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=sgman91;46188237] Also, I'm going to wait for Last or First to respond, if he wants, to the big post since glitchvid seemed to respond to each part of my post completely out of the context of the discussion at hand.[/QUOTE] you didn't do this...? Yeah, you did.

[QUOTE]you didn't do this...? Yeah, you did.[/QUOTE] I should have been more clear. I didn't respond for a few reasons: - I didn't want to have to argue with massive posts against multiple people at the same time. - Quite a few of his point either didn't relate to my argument at all or were out of context. - He brought up a few points that I had already clarified. - I didn't want to move the discussion too far forward because I wanted to hear the original person's response and many times people don't go back to previous arguments. With all that said... Here ya go: [QUOTE=glitchvid;46183600]Using the appeal to nature fallacy again I see. We went over this, just because it's natural or not natural makes no difference if gays are good or bad, or whether they should have equal rights. you would need to prove marriage [I]actually influences the success of a society significantly[/I], so [[I]Citation needed[/I]][/QUOTE] Are you seriously going to suggest that marriage doesn't play a large role in human society? There has been no more fundamental union in essentially every society in history past. In fact, it would probably be impossible to "prove" that marriage is good or bad... because I know of no society without it in some sense or another to use as a control group. Do you know what the appealing to nature fallacy is? It's when you say that something is good because it is natural. I've never said that marriage is good because it's natural. I've also never said anything about gays being good or bad. [QUOTE]Tax reasons I'm sure, Other rights only given to family (Which Marriage provides to a couple...). I'm in the "why even" boat so I'm not personally defending marriage as an institution.[/QUOTE] Roommates pay individual taxes. Why would this not apply to lovers? If you aren't defending marriage as an institution, then you shouldn't be defending gay marriage as a legitimate institution. I don't argue that thieves should steal from everyone equally in order to be fair because I'm against the idea of thievery all-together. [QUOTE]Usually people for "abolishing" marriage are for abolishing it in the governmental sense...[/QUOTE] The governmental sense is the only sense that we are talking about. What people do personally plays no part is the gay marriage debate. [QUOTE]Gays want the same rights as straights, that's super simple IMO.[/QUOTE] The right that gays are claiming to want, the ability to marry the person they love, has never existed as a right for anyone... ever. There have ALWAYS been limitations to marriage based on things other than love: age, mental status, familial relation, number of people, etc. They are not claiming the right to get married because they already have that right. There's is currently nothing illegal about a gay person getting married. It is specifically to marry the exact person they love. The question is whether love, on it's own, is a legitimate argument to expanding marriage. based on all the reasons I've given I don't believe that it is. [QUOTE]Assuming a marriage is just "the legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman (or, in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex) as partners in a relationship." then there's nothing explicitly making it a hetero only club.[/QUOTE] If that is the meaning of marriage, then there is no purpose for marriage at all. Government generally has nothing to do with personal relationships, friendships, for example have no baring on governmental action. [QUOTE]I'm fairly sure the people instilling cultural and societal values are the parents, [I]whoever they are[/I].[/QUOTE] This doesn't relate to my point at all. [QUOTE]Many a reason, I'd say Atheists are more logical when it comes to having children "Is this a good time to have a child".[/QUOTE] Atheists choose to have less children, not to have children at a different time. Every statistic shows this. [QUOTE]So what if atheists want to have a more successful life instead of having children, what does this have to do with allowing gays to marry?[/QUOTE] Look at it in context. We were discussing how different groups have differing birth rates and what the causes might be. [QUOTE]If you cared about knowing the truth you'd be an atheist by now.[/QUOTE] Thanks for that choice nugget of wisdom. Hopefully one day I'll be as smart as you. (and hopefully as condescending too! If I'm lucky!) [QUOTE]Governments are formed for a lot of reasons and serve a lot of purposes, recognizing marriage is one of them.[/QUOTE] I'm not sure how this applies. [QUOTE]Ok? That's fine, but since we live in a republic we have the ability to change laws without over throwing the government, what the gay rights activists are doing...[/QUOTE] Again, I don't think you understood the statement. It had nothing to do with our type of government and everything to do with how normative statements can be made about natural human institutions, including government and marriage.

[QUOTE=sgman91;46189461]I should have been more clear. I didn't respond for a few reasons: Are you seriously going to suggest that marriage doesn't play a large role in human society? There has been no more fundamental union in essentially every society in history past. In fact, it would probably be impossible to "prove" that marriage is good or bad... because I know of no society without it in some sense or another to use as a control group. [/quote] What if it plays a negative role in society, you need to provide a few things: That marriage is "natural" (which again, makes no difference directly whether or not gays should be able to marry), and that it's actually GOOD or BAD for a society; and that allowing gays to marry would make it WORSE or BETTER. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Do you know what the appealing to nature fallacy is? It's when you say that something is good because it is natural. I've never said that marriage is good because it's natural. I've also never said anything about gays being good or bad. [/quote] Oh, yeah sorry, was getting you confused with the guy at the beginning of the thread; your arguments to me come off as very similar. Mainly because you lean heavily on the appeal to tradition (it's always been in society, etc...) [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Roommates pay individual taxes. Why would this not apply to lovers? If you aren't defending marriage as an institution, then you shouldn't be defending gay marriage as a legitimate institution. I don't argue that thieves should steal from everyone equally in order to be fair because I'm against the idea of thievery all-together. [/quote] I'm defending the right for gay to marry one another; not whether or not marriage is ACTUALLY good, if it's there it should be equal. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] The governmental sense is the only sense that we are talking about. What people do personally plays no part is the gay marriage debate. [/quote] Which is my point, the government isn't concerned about love, it's concerned about the legal documents that present marriage. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] The right that gays are claiming to want, the ability to marry the person they love, has never existed as a right for anyone... ever. There have ALWAYS been limitations to marriage based on things other than love: age, mental status, familial relation, number of people, etc. [/quote] "So it has and never will be" The same argument could have been used on multi racial marriages. That's why we're trying to legalize the ability for gays to marry... I'm actually for polygamous marriage, it's just not feasible with the current laws and political climate. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] They are not claiming the right to get married because they already have that right. There's is currently nothing illegal about a gay person getting married. It is specifically to marry the exact person they love. The question is whether love, on it's own, is a legitimate argument to expanding marriage. based on all the reasons I've given I don't believe that it is. [/quote] It's about gays being allowed to marry another gay, there are people who are married to other people they don't love, it's the reason divorce exists. That's not my argument, my argument states: [QUOTE=glitchvid;46188777]This thread is about secular arguments against gay marriage. I say Gays, as consenting human being in their right mind, are deserved the same rights as straights when it comes to marriage ([i]The legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman (or, in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex) as partners in a relationship.[/i]). I say they deserved because nothing about marriage explicitly limits it to being between the same sex of consenting adults in their right mind, other than maybe a definition (So let's prefix it with gay-marriage, problem solved). [b]if[/b] you can prove gays "aren't in their right mind" (legally) then there might be an argument, but marriage only being recognized as straight is discrimination without reasonable basis. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] If that is the meaning of marriage, then there is no purpose for marriage at all. Government generally has nothing to do with personal relationships, friendships, for example have no baring on governmental action. [/quote] Exactly the reason I'm not in favour of marriage as an institution. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Atheists choose to have less children, not to have children at a different time. Every statistic shows this. [/quote] Hence the abortion and birth control mention. Also, sometimes the answer to the question is "Never". [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Look at it in context. We were discussing how different groups have differing birth rates and what the causes might be. [/quote] And this relates to gays being allowed to marry each other, how? Are you saying that gays won't have children, and are you saying this is factually BAD? [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Thanks for that choice nugget of wisdom. Hopefully one day I'll be as smart as you. (and hopefully as condescending too! If I'm lucky!) [/quote] You'd be condescending too if you had people trying to rationalize bigotry and veiled religious dogma with "Secular" arguments. When you saw how mass religious apology gives excuse for anti-abortion, anti birth control, anti sex education groups; then you would feel the same. If you understood the logical underpinnings of agnostic atheism, and then saw the cliff faces of irrationality that religious people jump off of, then you would feel the same. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] I'm not sure how this applies. [/quote] Usually government don't do things for shits and giggles, marriage exists because people want it. Usually people want it because it shows some form of "ultimate" commitment to your partner. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Again, I don't think you understood the statement. It had nothing to do with our type of government and everything to do with how normative statements can be made about natural human institutions, including government and marriage.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I think it was because I was hoping for a less painful point being made. The original point I presume was that there are "False" things, such as False marriages, False Governments, etc; to which you're going to need to expand because that doesn't really mean anything, other than that things exist which you dislike... Typing this right before bed, so it's a bit scatterbrained and my wrists hurt so the spacing is a bit bonkers, I'll try to get around to fixing it when I get back from class tomorrow, no promises.

After weeks of conferences and other bullshit I'm back [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461] Are you seriously going to suggest that marriage doesn't play a large role in human society? There has been no more fundamental union in essentially every society in history past. In fact, it would probably be impossible to "prove" that marriage is good or bad... because I know of no society without it in some sense or another to use as a control group.[/QUOTE] This doesn't really matter. Modern societies do have same-sex marriage. They haven't collapsed. Appealing to historical traditions doesn't really do anything. Throughout your posts you keep running with the idea that the arguments for same-sex marriage boil down to: marriage is about love nobody should be married Which is garbage. I'll expand on this more through this post. [QUOTE] Roommates pay individual taxes. Why would this not apply to lovers? If you aren't defending marriage as an institution, then you shouldn't be defending gay marriage as a legitimate institution. I don't argue that thieves should steal from everyone equally in order to be fair because I'm against the idea of thievery all-together.[/QUOTE] If said roommates live together for 20 years, know everything about each other's finances and families, and pool together resources I'm all for them paying joint taxes if it makes life easier for them. If two single mothers live together and decide that the benefits of marriage make life easier for them and their children because they already do everything together why shouldn't that be allowed? People get married (or don't) for lots of reasons. Being able to form a 'corporation' if you will through marriage is incredibly useful. Sharing resources for common personal goals is incredibly powerful. [QUOTE] The governmental sense is the only sense that we are talking about. What people do personally plays no part is the gay marriage debate. [/QUOTE] Yeah. We are talking about the governmental sense. Other people get this confused with forms of sectarian marriage. Few tend to argue for inclusion of same-sex couples as candidates for sectarian marriages, and I think those that make arguments for legal enforcement of that are wrong. Having access to the benefits of public, secular institutions is important for all people. [QUOTE] The right that gays are claiming to want, the ability to marry the person they love, has never existed as a right for anyone... ever. There have ALWAYS been limitations to marriage based on things other than love: age, mental status, familial relation, number of people, etc. They are not claiming the right to get married because they already have that right. There's is currently nothing illegal about a gay person getting married. It is specifically to marry the exact person they love. The question is whether love, on it's own, is a legitimate argument to expanding marriage. based on all the reasons I've given I don't believe that it is. [/QUOTE] That's not the sole reason, or even the primary or core reason. Pretending that it is and then basing your entire argument off of it is plain bullshit and contributes nothing to the conversation here, or from a socio-political stance. There are countless reasons two people might want to get married. Financial stability, visitation rights, travelling benefits, joint care of children, the list is too long to put into this post. People get married without the intention of ever having kids. People get married without having any sort of love between them. Affording these rights to all 'couples' makes more sense than restricting it to a sub-set. If two consenting adults agree that the public institution is beneficial to them why should their sexes or genders be the limiting factor? So yeah. If this situation were solely about marrying who you 'love' you might be right. But it isn't, and it has never been. [QUOTE] If that is the meaning of marriage, then there is no purpose for marriage at all. Government generally has nothing to do with personal relationships, friendships, for example have no baring on governmental action.[/QUOTE] Except the government does concern itself with personal relationships in plenty of contexts. In our legal system jurors are dismissed from a jury if they have personal connections to either party. In some places inheritance defaults to the next of kin. Personal relationships have public significance, and honestly I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's how shit works, and ignoring personal relationships in every setting doesn't make a more objective or functional governmental system. The issue is that we grant certain personal relationships and not others as having public significance by issuing marriage licences restrictively based on the sex or gender composition of that relationship. [QUOTE] Atheists choose to have less children, not to have children at a different time. Every statistic shows this. Look at it in context. We were discussing how different groups have differing birth rates and what the causes might be. [/QUOTE] This is pretty irrelevant to the discussion honestly. Older couples have a lower birth rate as well. While reproducing might be an important aspect of certain relationships for you and others, it doesn't apply to everyone, and that's more than ok. Not everyone needs or wants to have kids. I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that childless couples are problematic from a societal perspective, but we've had plenty of absolutely essential individuals in the modern era that didn't have kids or even close personal relationships. Gibbs is an excellent example, and I assure you we'd have a hard time without his work in thermodynamics. Engines and modern chemistry are kind of a big deal. [QUOTE]difficult to quote of context conversation regarding the purpose of government and public institutions[/QUOTE] This argument has basically been going in circles for days now. Almost all of it hinges on basing the right to marriage on 'love', which is stupid. I don't know why people try to use that as the core argument for the expansion of marriage to couples regardless of sex or gender, but people did in this thread and that was a total waste of time and doesn't even tackle the core issues. People bring up economic and other advantages and that gets dismissed on the notion that 'not all relationships are equal'. Upon asking for evidence as to why same-sex marriages wouldn't be equal or shouldn't be regarded as equal, child rearing gets brought into the equation which is internally consistent with the current enforcement of legally recognized marriages. Then we got some societal decline trite and comparison to distantly historical societies completely ignoring modern societies and cultures where the practice is acceptable and legal as some sort of evidence against the practice. If you've got sectarian reasons that's your issue for you to resolve in your sectarian institution. The mess that is 'objective morals' stemming from sectarian world views shouldn't spill over into the public secular sphere. It happens more often than it should, and most of the time the public consensus is that such situations are undesirable. Knowing that people are suffering currently because they aren't allowed access to the public institution of marriage and all the rights it entails with the people that they perceive to gain the most benefit from on the basis of sex or gender, can you in good faith insist that they should not be allowed to marry? Their reasons could involve love, intimate acts, personal convictions, financial obligations or stability, joint care of dependents, inheritance, funerary or hospital rights, or the thousands of other rights and benefits granted to married couples. Their reasons could be any combination of these. The marriages of non-citizens or even between citizens and foreign nationals provides more legal headaches than recognizing marriages between same-sex couples of our own citizens, yet that's allowed. Insisting that we have to scrutinize their reasoning for being granted essentially equal access while ignoring hetero couples' reasoning is bullshit.

[QUOTE=sgman91;46183102]Not every natural thing must apply to all things equally. Human skin doesn't rust, but that doesn't mean that rust isn't a natural thing. By looking at human nature we can see that some for of male/female marriage is about as natural as any other human institution. I know of no successful society without some form of marriage.[/quote] I'm not saying it has to apply to all things, but you should find it somewhere. Marriage is still a human institution. It's decided upon by humans. It's not like gay marriage is going to get rid of marriage, it's only going to add to it. [QUOTE=sgman91;46183102]Again, why would the government care if you lived together? What is the difference, as it relate to the government, between lovers living together and friends living together? Why should they care and recognize one and give no care about the other? The idea of abolishing marriage would have been laughable even 40 years ago, but now there are lots mainstream people who hold the view. It has most definitely gotten a foothold in a segment of the population and it makes perfect sense. Like I've been saying: if marriage is only about love and sex, then why should the government care? Why does this not apply to roommates? They do everything that lovers would do bar the sex.[/quote] Roommates, as far as I know, are generally a much more temporary arrangement. Well, lots more people hold the view of allowing gay marriage, which also would have been laughable 40 years ago, so I don't know where you're going with that. "If we can't have it to ourselves, it would be better for no one to have it"? [quote]Also, the act of using the same things and combining your income is an inherent advantage, not a disadvantage. To give married people even more governmental advantages is to make them even more advantaged above someone who decideds to not get married.[/quote] It's more generally for when one person acts as a homemaker and/or when they have a child. If you want to argue about removing the tax benefits for married couples who don't fit that description, why not campaign only for that rather than for abolishing marriage altogether? [quote]Note that my argument has never been that gay people shouldn't be able to get married because they can't have children, but that the argument for gay marriage settles the fundemental change of what marriage is, that love is all that matters. If, on the other hand, the argument for gay marriage was that gay couples really just want to be able to raise children, and that's the reason they wanted to get married, then I might be a bit more open to it, but this simply isn't the case. I've literally never heard that argument come out of anyone's mouth.[/quote] Well, a lot of gay people have been fighting for the right to adopt children too, so they have been arguing that they want to be able to raise children. Your argument is that marriage is about raising children, right? How does what you say deal with couples who don't want or can't have children? Wouldn't those be a "fundamental change of what marriage is" too? [quote]I would argue that the dissolution of the male/female binary combined with the push in the 80s to the earl 00's that men and women were exactly the same (other than sex organs) are much more responsible than the acceptance of homosexuality. Like I said before, there were other societies in our history with even more acceptance of homosexuality, yet they never argued for gay marriage. On the other hand the dissolution of what it means to be a male and female is a new thing. I know of no other society before modern times to make such a claim. It makes sense. Marriage is partly based on the idea that men and women provide different things to a union. That the union of the two is greater than the sum of it's parts, but this falls apart when you believe that men and women are identical.[/quote] I guess gender equality would help make the push too. I'm pretty sure that started before the 80's, but 1) you're probably talking about a specific part of gender equality, and 2) it's just a detail, so who cares. [quote]Like I've said in the past, I see the raising of children and the passing on of societies values as the main function of marriage. This is an absolutely vital function that must be accomplished if a society wishes to continue. All other other stuff like sharing assets, living together, etc. can be done by roommates as easily as lovers. Children is the one benefit that I would ideally apply only to marriage. Note that this doesn't mean that only married couples should be allowed to raise children, but that we should uphold that marriage is the ideal.[/quote] Talked about this above. [quote]You really don't think it's more than a coincidence that atheists have ridiculously low birth rates and that the more fundamental a religious sect the higher it's birth rate generally is? Here's an article written by an atheist in the Guardian arguing that the childless life is better based on nothing more than personal gratification: [URL]http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/sep/18/children-philosophy-childless[/URL] I can't help but assume that many other people agree with him.[/quote] I'm not saying it's a coincidence, I'm saying that children being less necessary for direct survival and a smaller rate of child death contribute [I]as well[/I]. [quote]There's a reason that an emotional appeal is a formal logical fallacy. Any appeal to emotion is fallacious when making an argument. ([URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion[/URL])[/quote] Maybe you misunderstood what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we should rely on appeals to emotion, I'm saying that we shouldn't ignore emotion. There's a difference between "I don't like it, so x fact can't be true" and "People don't like how x policy is treating them, maybe we should change it". Oh, and a quick edit before I forget and before anyone brings it up: there's a fundamental difference between a direct dislike ("this is personally affecting me", ex. "I don't want to get married against my will") and an indirect dislike ("other people are doing this", ex. "I don't want those people to get married"). There's a reason we take "I'm being forced into marriage!" as a much more legitimate complaint than "She's getting married to someone else but I'm in love with her!" [quote]I would hope so. Please, point to a place where I've made an emotional appeal and I'll correct it.[/quote] Well, I wasn't really even talking about appeal to emotion fallacies, but: You [I]were[/I] saying "gay marriage will play a role in the downfall of society as we know it and will make marriage pointless", which I'm pretty sure is an appeal to fear. [quote]Faith, as used in my religion, is believe in future events based on what you know of past events. For example, faith that a person won't tell your secret to anybody based on the fact that they have a long history of never telling your secret to anybody. I hate blind faith as much as any atheist. My religious beliefs rise and fall based on facts that I agree with, not amorphous faith.[/quote] But they also require faith in supernatural events in the past that cannot be proven outside of "people believe it's true". To cut off any "then how can you prove anything in the past" arguments: you can find ruins to find proof of ancient civilizations. You can study rock formations to find proof of ancient water flow or tectonic movement. You can uncover fossils to learn of ancient creatures. You can find records of ancient laws to provide evidence that those laws were once enacted. You can find records of lineages to find who ruled ancient governments. However, some records are more trustworthy than others. "Caesar was assassinated today" is much more believable and verifiable than "Caesar personally defeated the approaching Persian army" and "Caesar slayed a fire breathing dragon". [quote]It's funny that you are now appealing to some natural sense of what government is... which is the exact same thing that I'm doing for marriage. You are saying that government can be treated as objective because it has an agreed upon purpose. My entire point is that the purpose of marriage is violated when you make it all about love, just like the entire purpose of government is violated when you make it not about the betterment of society. For example, let us say that we had a government who's goal was to inspire fear in it's populace in order to keep control over it. I would argue, in the same way that I am for marriage, that this is a false government. It does not stand up to what a government should be and therefore should be gotten rid of.[/QUOTE] I'm not saying it [I]is[/I] objective, I'm saying it's subjective [I]but can temporarily be treated as objective[/I]. Having a government would be objective, but the nature of that government would be subjective, based on which government you have and what laws its rulers decide to enact. Government is not set in stone, it can change at any time at will. (Well, obviously not instantly, and rarely even quickly, but you get the point, hopefully. We're in control of what government is, and then we decide to let it control us. You don't come across a government in nature as if it's a rock overhang or a physical law of the universe.) That's getting off track though, my point is that we can temporarily treat a moral as objective even though it's subjective if our goal is to follow said moral. I would argue that a tyranny is a bad government for its people and should be overthrown for their sake, but it's not a [I]false[/I] government, just a [I]harmful[/I] one. [QUOTE=sgman91;46189461]The right that gays are claiming to want, the ability to marry the person they love, has never existed as a right for anyone... ever. There have ALWAYS been limitations to marriage based on things other than love: age, mental status, familial relation, number of people, etc.[/quote] There's a difference between a limitation and a reason. The reason people get married is because they love each other and want to be a family. The limitations are in place to make sure no one's getting harmed. By the way, gay marriage follows all of the limitations you mentioned. The only one it doesn't follow is, obviously, the one about partners needing to be of different sexes. It's not like allowing gay marriage will suddenly make marriage about love, leading to tons of quick, meaningless marriages and the end of long lasting, successful, child-rearing marriages. Marriage has been about love for a while. There have been many quick, meaningless marriages long before gay marriage was allowed [I]anywhere[/I]. And there have also been many childless marriages before gay marriage. And many gay people are fighting to be able to adopt children, meaning that gay marriage wouldn't even necessarily be childless.

I really want to applaud the three of your with your well worded and concise arguments. Thanks for taking over after I got too annoyed to continue.

This may have been answered but can someone provide me an answer or the cliffs on why I, as a voter, should be concerned with gay people, or any another other consenting adults for that matter, getting married? I hear about this issue all the time and I have no idea why dissenters care so much.

[QUOTE=billy79;46265352]This may have been answered but can someone provide me an answer or the cliffs on why I, as a voter, should be concerned with gay people, or any another other consenting adults for that matter, getting married? I hear about this issue all the time and I have no idea why dissenters care so much.[/QUOTE] This question hasn't been answered as most dissenters aren't specifically taking issue with any two people being able to marry each other, the issue at hand is whether it is wise to redefine marriage from its traditional roots (heterosexual union for purposes of creating an ideal environment for rearing and raising children) to what some define it as now (fundamentally a contractual agreement between two or more individuals). The reason for doubting whether this redefinition is truly wise is based particularly on the issue of children and what environment is developmentally ideal for them, same-sex unions are a small part of a broader problem in how modern society views sex and relationships. Essentially, we think that redefining one of the oldest forms of human social structure is no small matter and will have more side-effects than just suddenly letting anybody marry.

[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266025]This question hasn't been answered as most dissenters aren't specifically taking issue with any two people being able to marry each other, the issue at hand is whether it is wise to redefine marriage from its traditional roots (heterosexual union for purposes of creating an ideal environment for rearing and raising children) to what some define it as now (fundamentally a contractual agreement between two or more individuals). The reason for doubting whether this redefinition is truly wise is based particularly on the issue of children and what environment is developmentally ideal for them, same-sex unions are a small part of a broader problem in how modern society views sex and relationships.[/QUOTE] Why is it you post to a quip but ignore 3 well worded arguments you've had quite some time to read and reply to?

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266035]Why is it you post to a quip but ignore 3 well worded arguments you've had quite some time to read and reply to?[/QUOTE] Firstly those posts were not in response to anything I said, secondly I have not spent the whole time since I last posted in this thread contemplating how to respond to a forum post. Besides, i feel it's important to periodically make one's position clear as I have found in the past it is often skewed / forgotten.

[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266057]Firstly those posts were not in response to anything I said, secondly I have not spent the whole time since I last posted in this thread contemplating how to respond to a forum post.[/QUOTE] that's a great way to argue. So none of what any of those three posts went over, argued for, has any impact on your arguments? You can literally just handwave them away as meaningless unrelated arguments? This is why it's hard to even take you seriously sometime when you refuse to take other people seriously. [editline]17th October 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266057] Besides, i feel it's important to periodically make one's position clear as I have found in the past it is often skewed / forgotten.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure we all knew that your view was that changing marriage from anything but your specific traditional view of it would be really bad.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266068]that's a great way to argue. So none of what any of those three posts went over, argued for, has any impact on your arguments? You can literally just handwave them away as meaningless unrelated arguments? This is why it's hard to even take you seriously sometime when you refuse to take other people seriously.[/QUOTE] No, but I have had little to no part in the discussion and been too busy to formulate a careful response to three walls of text. I don't see how that constitutes not taking anyone seriously. [QUOTE]I'm pretty sure we all knew that your view was that changing marriage from anything but your specific traditional view of it would be really bad.[/QUOTE] That's news to me given the numerous times I've been accused of just hating gay people.

[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266099]That's news to me given the numerous times I've been accused of just hating gay people.[/QUOTE] Using an appeal to tradition and fear of possible societal decline to justify the systematic oppression of a minority doesn't really place you on the caring side of said people either.

[QUOTE=Levithan;46266152]Using an appeal to tradition and fear of possible societal decline to justify the systematic oppression of a minority doesn't really place you on the caring side of said people either.[/QUOTE] It's not an appeal to tradition though, yes I do defend the traditional view of marriage, but it's more an argument against blind optimism about changing a very fundamental part of society.

[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266175]It's not an appeal to tradition though, yes I do defend the traditional view of marriage, but it's more an argument against blind optimism about changing a very fundamental part of society.[/QUOTE] so it is an argument from tradition then...?

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266267]so it is an argument from tradition then...?[/QUOTE] Surely you're not claiming that it's fallacious to argue against something by claiming that it is blindly optimistic.

It would take evidence to show blind optimism that changing a definition will cause great harm and damage to all of mankind as a whole through the change of culture through letting gay people have marriage.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266288]It would take evidence to show blind optimism that changing a definition will cause great harm and damage to all of mankind as a whole through the change of culture through letting gay people have marriage.[/QUOTE] So you agree we are not arguing from tradition then?

[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;46266294]So you agree we are not arguing from tradition then?[/QUOTE] maybe if you'd shown that evidence and not just your own biases [editline]17th October 2014[/editline] Just argue with those 3 posts as they contain arguments relevant to what you think and what you're arguing for. if you think they do not, then you are not really interested in this discussion as they have many points there for you to discuss.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266306]Just argue with those 3 posts as they contain arguments relevant to what you think and what you're arguing for. if you think they do not, then you are not really interested in this discussion as they have many points there for you to discuss.[/QUOTE] The way I see it, those in favour of redefining marriage should be supporting their points with valid evidence as well since they are the one's proposing the change, in a lot of these discussions it seems like it's only those against that are demanded to present a list of sources. Since I have the time to spare on a larger post now, I'll look into the less inflammatory posts on the last page and respond from my point of view, however I'd like to request that you post a list of valid sources that support your point of view.

if you're going to use your personal definition of valid, then it's clearly not going to happen and you already know that. There is no evidence that gay marriage is harmful to society as a whole, you'd think you guys would have lead with that if there was.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266397]if you're going to use your personal definition of valid, then it's clearly not going to happen and you already know that.[/QUOTE] That's why I'm going to rely on what tried and proven practices make a sociological study valid instead.

so where is the tried and proven evidence that gay marriage is highly damaging to all members of society as a whole, so damaging that it is objectively better to deny them marriage on all fronts?

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46266417]so where is the tried and proven evidence that gay marriage is highly damaging to all members of society as a whole, so damaging that it is objectively better to deny them marriage on all fronts?[/QUOTE] Uh, that's not what I was talking about and I'm obviously not going to make my post right this instant as it will be in response to several points.

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